


Sleepless Nights

by 2SpaceGays



Category: Batwoman (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9980630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2SpaceGays/pseuds/2SpaceGays
Summary: Maggie can't sleep. Kate helps.





	

I’ve been up all night, tossing and turning, sitting up and reaching for my case notes every few minutes.  Staring at the too-familiar words only compounds the pain in my head and in my heart, exacerbating my frustration and making me that much more restless – driving the possibility of sleep that much further out of reach. Pacing doesn’t help, and my limbs are too heavy with exhaustion to make working out an option. Meditating does nothing – I can’t escape my own thoughts that easily. Equally unsuccessful is the warm shower I take in an attempt to lure my body to sleep as it cools. The urge to give up is squashed by my desire to have a good night’s rest to come at the case with fresh eyes tomorrow – a pressure that is probably hindering more than it is helping.

I’m on the couch when Kate returns from patrol. Neither of us are ashamed about the hour. It isn’t the first time she’s found me like this, too wound up to sleep, too exhausted not to. I’m sure I look terrible, but it’s the furthest thing from my mind as I seek out her eyes with the removal of that mask, anxiously searching for hope. 

I find none.

Kate’s shoulders are slumped, her face uncharacteristically lined with all the years she’s felt without living. She hasn’t found a lead, either. Out of the small, knowing smiles we exchange, I’m not sure whose is more despairing. Kate carries with her guilt she has done nothing to earn, as if a new piece of evidence could be conjured if only she willed it hard enough. At times like this, I’m not much better.

She disappears to shed the uniform, and I switch off the TV, killing the colourful, flicking lights that had been the only source of illumination in the room. Guided half by memory and half by the dim lamp left on in the bedroom, I make it back to bed. The sheets are cool, as is Kate’s skin when she joins me. In our tight embrace under the cover, we warm quickly, without teasing comments about freezing hands and feet this time.

Kate could sleep – she’s one of those people that fall asleep the second they allow themselves to. Unspoken between us is that she won’t leave me to lay awake alone for the rest of the night.

Hands pull up my shirt instead, warm fingers sliding along my stomach and then my ribs. Understanding is potent in the air between us. Kate’s steady, nonjudgmental gaze guides me on top of her, legs astride her waist. Kisses are slow, sweet exchanges belied by the relative clumsiness of our clashing wrists between our bodies.

Kate’s breath is humid against my neck, the stifling heat of the covers abruptly too much for our lightly sweating bodies. Neither of us move to shed them, and we remain slick and hot against each other even after I’ve collapsed, spent, on top of her, face buried in the crook of her neck where the salt of her flesh tingles on my lips.  Kate is slower to unwind, but I eventually break her self-imposed silence to fill the room with her desperate moans. They crescendo quickly after that, and we lay together, tangled, a sticky mess of heavy limbs, whispering quietly in the dark.

Sleep finds us together.


End file.
